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On Cupcake Fanatics, Alice Waters, and Bread Baskets

July 21, 2009

Over at Food in Mouth, writer Danny has got a pretty hilarious response to my cupcake story (Plus, pretty shots of cupcakes.) He argues that cupcake fanatics are not so bad:

So I see cupcake fanatics as Tamagotchi owners. Slightly annoying, and definitely makes me want to seek out a chicken bone so I can choke on it just a little. They might gross you out with their fervor, but at the end of the day, it’s pretty harmless. It’s like getting stuck in an elevator with a rabid hockey fan from Saskatchewan or something.

But will the rabid hockey fan call you a fat bitch if you don’t have fond memories of the Moose Jaw Sheiks? (Actually, I don’t know the answer to that…) But a top 15 cupcake post inspired cupcake fanatics to call pastry chef Nancy Olson fat, a bitch, deluded, a liar, and worse. (Mysteriously, the comments on that post have been missing since Grub Street’s redesign.) I mean, technically that’s harmless, in the sense that Olson’s not going to fall down and die from it. And really, it’s hilarious–like these people have a disease that causes them to grow fangs when their favorite cupcake doesn’t get first place. It’s a vocal minority, granted. I just can’t figure out why a cupcake, of all foods, is the thing that gets people that enraged.

If not rabid cupcake-ophiles, what does get Danny riled up? Vocal moral high-grounders like Alice Waters, and the demise of the free bread basket. I can definitely agree on that last one–getting a basket of bread and butter is starting to seem like a luxury.